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  • Personal Carbon Allowances: Enviros’ Unified Theory of Control

Personal Carbon Allowances: Enviros’ Unified Theory of Control

William L. Kovacs

March 2023

Personal Carbon Allowances: Enviros’ Unified Theory of Control

For decades environmental think tanks have been developing a theory called Personal Carbon Allowances (“PCA”). It is a unified Marxist style theory that seeks to use government to control the asserted destructive impacts of capitalism, such as climate change, poverty, and the lack of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”). A recent report in Nature Sustainability writes, “A PCA scheme would entail all adults receiving an equal, tradable, carbon allowance that reduces over time in line with national targets.” Individuals not needing their carbon allowances could sell them to those willing to pay for a more carbon intense lifestyle.

The goal of a PCA is to develop “a just and equitable transition to a net-zero society,” in which the social norm is low-carbon behavior. PCAs would encompass economy-wide emissions. PCAs’ endpoint is to redistribute wealth by making low-income households winners and high-income households losers.

The environmental community never believed PCA would be publicly accepted until the Covid pandemic. Environmentalists realized during the pandemic, the public accepted individual restrictions for the sake of public health, something unthinkable only one year before.

Big business, banking, academia, and the super-rich (“the Woke Coalition” or “TWC”) realized that if they supported the environmental and social movements, those groups would support their efforts to rob the proverbial bank; the federal government.

Environmentalists’ and the TWC persuaded the federal government to authorize $370 billion in subsidies for green technologies and dramatically stymie the nation’s fossil fuels industry. These activities are in addition to federal regulations imposing energy efficiency requirements on at least sixty products and $577 billion in subsidies for green technology since 2004.

While the TWC members joyously swim in government benefits, they do not grasp the environmentalists’ end game is to reorder society by redistributing all wealth to make everyone equal. This equitable correction of wealth inequality will be administered to create a deliberate imbalance in favor of marginalized groups.

PCA is not Marxism which is about changing the ownership of the means of production. PCA is about eliminating the means of production. Moreover, their direct quotes contained in The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic advocate for the massive reduction of the human race.

buy ivermectin pills Phase I limit human behavior.

The Climate and Community Project at the University of California, Davis, issued a study describing how to achieve nirvana. It proposes reducing the use of cars, even in the suburbs, by forcing high-density urban living on all people. Transportation would be bicycling, walking, and building mass transportation everywhere. Almost everyone would live in a small apartment in a “livable neighborhood.” This plan would force the displacement of millions of rural Americans. Let’s call this “brilliant” idea “The Great Resettlement,” a softer label than a “21c. Trail of Tears.”

Baraguá Phase II create a trading market

PCA will redistribute trillions of dollars through the buying and selling of allowances. Environmentalists understand success rests upon redistributing the wealth of the top 10% of society that generates one-half of all greenhouse gas emissions. While the environmentalists believe the wealthy must pay for the greenhouse gases that destroy the environment, TWC plays along for the generous government subsidies.

How the trading system might be structured.

The literature on PCAs describes many approaches. The final trading system will depend on. The U.S. generates 5 billion tons of CO2 annually, or 15.5 tons per person. On average, the bottom 50% of the income level emits 10.4 tons, the middle 40% emits 21.8 tons, and the top 10% emits 68.8 tons. The CO2 emissions of the wealthiest 1% could be in thousands of tons, depending on lifestyle.

Using these averages, the lower-income 50% of the U.S. population (61 million people) would each have 4.1 allowances to sell and still maintain their standard of living. Persons in the middle class, 40% of the population, would need to purchase 6.3 allowances to maintain their lifestyles. The top 10% of the wealthy would need to buy an additional 55.3 tons of allowances to maintain their lifestyles. In PCA, it appears there would not be sufficient allowances to provide the middle class and the wealthy all the allowances sought. CO2 reductions would begin even before the government wretches down the individual allocations.

In 2023 the U.S. poverty level is set at $14,680 for an individual. To achieve several goals, CO2 reduction, eliminating poverty, and fostering DEI, an initial allowance price of $4,000 per ton would lift tens of millions above the poverty level by selling their extra allowances to the middle and upper classes. Each poor person would receive approximately $16,400 from the sale of their 4.1 extra allowances.

The average middle-class person would have to purchase 6.3 allowances, a $25,200 purchase, to maintain status quo living. On average, a person in the top 10% would have to purchase $213,200 of additional allowances. The super-wealthy might need to buy thousands of allowances to keep their private jets, mansions, and global lifestyles. At $4,000 an allowance, the cost would be $ 4 million per year for 1000 allowances. A Bill Gates lifestyle is incalculable.

If the 1,760,941 individuals in the top 1% purchased, on average, 1000 allowances, they would be contributing $176 billion a year to eliminate poverty, foster equity, and dramatically reduce CO2 levels. The cost of the pollution allowances is a mere drop in the top 1%’s  $45.9 trillion proverbial wealth bucket.

As PCA reduces the economic activity that produces CO2, the government will have less revenue available for subsidies to TWC. Fewer subsidies for TWC will create an existential crisis concerning their survival. The environmentalists will be pleased with the economic decline since there would be fewer products produced and less CO2.  As TWC loses more of its customer base, its wealth and influence will proportionally diminish.

Paraphrasing Fyodor Dostoevsky, I sense vaguely that the TWC is going to pay dearly for supporting the environmental and social movements.

William L. Kovacs is the author of Reform the Kakistocracy, winner of the 2021 Independent Press Award for Political/Social Change, and, The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic. He is a former senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for Environment, Technology & Regulatory Affairs.

 

 

 

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  • Student Debt & Climate Change: Tyranny by National Emergency

Student Debt & Climate Change: Tyranny by National Emergency

William L. Kovacs

August 2022

Student Debt & Climate Change: Tyranny by National Emergency

The Biden administration is claiming Congress, by its enactment of national emergency statutes, has given the president the power to unilaterally control all aspects of life in America. A year ago, it locked down the country for Covid. In August, it forgave $600 billion of student debt. Next, it will regulate the entire economy in the name of climate change. Scary as these scenarios might be, Congress might have given the president these powers in its state of irrelevancy. If Congress does not revoke these emergency powers and reclaim its legislative authority, we are certain to live under tyranny. William L. Kovacs, The author

August 23, 2022, President Biden forgives $600 billion of student loan debt. His asserted authority is the 2003 Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act (“HEROES”), which “authorizes” such power to address the financial harms caused by a national emergency. The continuing national emergency is COVID.

Biden is also contemplating the designation of climate change as a national emergency. If such a declaration is lawful, it would allow his administration to shut down the economy of the United States. Biden recently called climate change a “clear and present danger,” vowing to use unspecified executive powers to address it. The likely asserted authority will be the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”).

How can a president have such powers under our Constitution? There is a simple answer. Congress has granted many emergency powers to the Executive. And unfortunately, in a divided Congress, it cannot revoke them.

There are 126 laws passed by Congress authorizing the President to use so-called “national emergency powers.”  These laws allow U.S. Presidents to keep this nation in a perpetual national emergency. President Biden knows how to use these powers; Congress does not know how to reclaim them.

Since the start of his presidency, Biden has aggressively used emergency powers. He extended President Trump’s national emergency order indefinitely on the Covid pandemic. Relying upon emergency public health powers, Biden mandated that 84 million Americans subject to the Occupational Safety and Health Act either obtain a Covid-19 vaccine or submit to weekly testing. Biden also used the emergency powers to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium to stem the spread of Covid.

With little discussion, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the mandatory employee Covid testing and eviction moratorium orders. However,  the Court in West Virginia v. EPA (“WVA v. EPA”), an administrative law case involving climate change, issued a groundbreaking ruling that will likely determine the legality of future Executive overreach, including future declarations of national emergency. EPA attempted to regulate climate change using obscure and vague provisions of the Clean Air Act. The court held EPA “were [was] asserting highly consequential power beyond what Congress could reasonably be understood to have granted.”

The holding in WVA v. EPA will likely subject future emergency declarations to more intense scrutiny as to congressional intent. Such scrutiny is essential. Student debt cancellation is a perfect example of manipulating language. By isolating every word of the HEROES Act, e.g., “wave” or “modify,”  and separating the words from its legislative history and historical context, the Biden administration justifies its loan forgiveness declaration. Biden’s argument is simple – Covid placed students in a worse financial condition.

Designating some “happening” a national emergency allows the President to spend additional money and circumvent restrictions that might be imposed by law.

By designating “climate change” an  emergency, Biden could order “…sweeping actions to restrain greenhouse gas production – such as banning U.S. crude oil exports, ending offshore drilling or speeding the manufacturing of electric vehicles.” Such actions could decimate world energy supplies and, likely, our economy.

These congressionally delegated emergency powers are so broad and vague they allow a U.S. president to suspend the Constitution until Congress either cuts off funding or the Supreme Court strikes down the emergency declaration.

While Congress has only one law designated “National Emergencies,” NYU’s Brennan Center identifies 136 laws that allow the President to declare a national emergency. Ninety-six of these laws require nothing more than the signature of the President on an emergency proclamation. Fifteen emergency laws have restrictions such as involving a specific subject matter or the need for armed forces. Only thirteen of these emergency laws require a congressional declaration of emergency.

These 136 emergency laws are part of a massive legal framework that contains over 3000 separate criminal offenses in 50 titles of the U.S. Code and 23,000 pages of federal law. That was the last count in 1980. More troublesome, the National Emergencies Act “…does not define what constitutes a national emergency.”

Without a  definition, the statutory meaning of the term must be determined by the common meaning found in a dictionary. Merriam Webster defines a national emergency as “a state of emergency (an unforeseen circumstance needing immediate action) resulting from a danger or threat of danger to a nation from foreign or domestic sources and usually declared to be in existence by a governmental authority.” Such a subjective definition is determined through the eye of the beholder.

The troubling use of recent declarations is that they were invoked with scant factual findings to support the government’s actions. The public health emergency law referenced a waiver of a liability law for those assisting the federal government to address Covid, i.e., protecting the pharmaceutical companies.

The only requirement to implement an emergency power is the President must specify the provision in any of the 136 laws under which he will act. The provision cited does not need to relate to the actions he takes. On this point, the decision in WVA v. EPA may change the outcome if the court forces the President to stay within the powers of the statute relied upon when declaring the emergency.

Congress must find a mechanism to terminate these emergency laws when they have served their purpose. Without such a mechanism, the emergency can be continued merely by the President issuing a declaration for it to continue. One option for terminating an emergency power is for Congress to terminate it by joint resolution. Since the President must sign joint resolutions, Congress needs a two-thirds majority to override a presidential veto. Without Congress being able to override a veto, these emergency powers are perpetual.

In addition to health emergencies, other powers available to the President include the ability to control airports, industrial facilities, and any device capable of emitting electromagnetic radiation, i.e., our communications system. The authority most used is IEEPA. It authorizes the President to invoke emergency powers relating to U.S. national security, foreign policy, or the economy, including financial and commercial transactions. The IEEPA has been invoked 55 times. Presidents can impose sanctions on individuals and countries, including freezing bank accounts and seizing assets. While the threat is required to be related to an activity in whole or part outside of the U.S., it is easy for a president to assert a foreign connection by claiming national security.

By enacting the National Emergencies Act and the 136 other statutes, Congress gives presidents the power to be a dictator at times of their choosing. There are only two practical ways to restrain a President’s use of emergency powers. The U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated a willingness to curb the administrative state. Still, the legal process takes many years, and the outcome depends on the political leanings of the court.

A more powerful approach is for Congress to function as an independent check on the Executive, as envisioned in our Constitution. Unfortunately, as long as the members of Congress who are of the same party as the President serve as a president’s lapdogs, Congress is mostly irrelevant.

The only remaining viable option would arise when different political parties control the House and Senate. In this situation, the House of Congress, controlled by the party in opposition to the President’s party, could refuse to appropriate funding for the President’s power grab. Without both Houses of Congress agreeing to appropriate money for the emergency, the President has no means of paying for his power grab. In the final analysis, starving the dictator may be the only solution to save the Republic.

 

William L. Kovacs has served as senior vice-president for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, chief counsel to a congressional committee, and a partner in law D.C. law firms, and his book Reform the Kakistocracy is the winner of the 2021 Independent Press Award for Political/Social Change. His second book, The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic, is a collection of quotes from the Left on how to control society by eliminating capitalism, people, and truth.

This article was first published in “The Thinking Conservative,”  August 2022

 

 

 

 

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  • New Green Republics: Utopia or the Elites Inherit the Earth?

New Green Republics: Utopia or the Elites Inherit the Earth?

William L. Kovacs

August 2022

New Green Republics: Utopia or the Elites Inherit the Earth?

As governments and their institutions, big business, financial institutions, environmental groups, and the radical left are consumed with anxiety over climate change, they seem to ignore every other issue confronting humanity. Or, is their use of climate change a false narrative to hide their real intent? The recent baffling actions by governments in Sri Lanka and the Netherlands point to the establishment of “New Green Republics.” The Biden administration is attempting to pursue a similar course.

Sri Lanka is an island nation off the coast of India. It had been rebuilding itself for decades after years of authoritarian rule. Its agriculture yield had so dramatically increased it had become a middle-income nation until its government banned the use of fertilizers for growing crops. The nation quickly became a nightmare with people starving, a third of its land dormant, crop yields cut in half, energy shortages and skyrocketing inflation. The people revolted.

At the same time, the Netherlands government announced plans to cut emissions of nitrogen and ammonia thereby forcing the closure of thousands of family farms. Another baffling move since Dutch farmers are the second largest food exporters in the world. The farmers launched protests similar to the Canadian truckers. The protests are ongoing.

Across the world, governments are seeking to ban new factory farms, pesticides, and even the use of pesticides on private property, beef, turkey, chicken, and cheese. Environmentalists are even organizing a revolution against factory-made food. To some, the entire food system is a threat to the environment.

Several commentators attribute Sri Lanka’s fall to its president’s “being under the spell of western green elites peddling organic agriculture and seeking a high ESG” (Environment, Social and Governance) rating. Sri Lanka has a near-perfect ESG score of 98. The U.S. has a 51, down with Cuba and Bulgaria. The Netherlands has a 90.7 ESG score.

These woke-type governments are choosing “climate and ESG goals at the expense of feeding their populations and enabling citizens to keep their homes warm during the winter.” These governments, including the Biden administration, seem to be under some type of a spell that blocks their use of common sense to work for the betterment of their people.

Unfortunately, for all who somehow give credence to ESG scores, they are like all other ranking efforts, subjective to the narrative to be achieved. An ESG score is defined as a numerical measure of how a corporation or country is perceived to be performing on a wide range of environmental, social, and governance topics. The operative word in the definition is “perceived.” How is the nation perceived? There is a gap between what is real and what is perceived. It’s simply a branding effort.  Moreover, for government ratings, an ESG rating “explains” how a nation’s risk factors impact the long-term sustainability of the economy, in addition to its debt.

This is where government decisions become baffling. Why would a country with a growing economy and high ESG rating intentionally ban pesticides and harm the economy and health of its people? Why would the Biden administration want to eliminate fossil fuels and the 6,000 essential products made from the components, to sabotage the living standards of most citizens?

These decisions simply do not make sense.

Decisions to throw a nation into turmoil actually conflict with the goal of ESG which is to help investors assess the sustainability of a country. A nation in chaos is not sustainable under any circumstances. These arbitrary decisions more closely resemble decisions made by Caligula, the Roman emperor who gave his horse a majestic house and, to prove his absolute power, sought to appoint the horse to the high office of consul, before being assassinated.

A “spell” to protect the environment should cause the bewitched ruler to protect the environment; whereas destroying the means to produce food or energy, the ruler is forcing the nation into chaos, perhaps revolution. Both outcomes would destroy the environment. There must be a more existential reason.  Either it is a drive to form a utopia, or it’s the implementation of the long-held belief of the radical environmental community that humanity is a cancer on the earth, and must go.

Finding utopia has been a dream of philosophers for centuries. Their dreams are structured around a beneficial elite; religious dogma, science, machine rule, communism, or totalitarianism. Perhaps the elite would retry one of these worn-out systems, but it is almost impossible to keep seven billion people down on the farm after they had some exposure to freedom, food, and energy.

If the ruler takes the utopian path, it would have to take the path described by some as the “Great Reset.”  ESG would become a “social credit system to drive ownership and production away from the non-woke or non-compliant.” It is a system in which profitable monopolies and the state rule by controlling big data, artificial intelligence, genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. Humans would only know what the elite allow them to know. All human thought would be transferred to the elite. The human mind would be in an “inescapable prison. “The major problem with the utopian model is the difficulty of feeding seven billion humans. The elite would have to develop a massive food production system which would be extremely expensive, especially with bans on many foods. It would literally require the enslavement of much of the population. Since the cost of all living in utopia is too high, the elite need an easier plan to implement.

Plan B, is the plan the radical community has written about for a century, the mass reduction of humans. The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic is a collection of quotations from the radical left that supports this view in their own words.

The famous undersea explorer, Jacque-Yves-Cousteau noted “It’s terrible to have to say this. The world population must be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn’t even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable.”

One of the wishes of Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, President of the World Wildlife Fund International was “If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.” And, our college-age students are being taught that government must focus on reducing the world population by at least 80%.

Perhaps the most honest discussion of humans being cancer on the earth is presented in a 2019 essay in Culturico, a Swiss Cultural platform that bills itself as fighting misinformation.  Culturico compares humans to cancer cells. The environment is our host and the selfish, harmful actions of humans are destroying the host, just as a tumor would destroy living organisms in our body. The platform goes through the five steps of how tumors spread cancer. The essay ends with the question, “Can we conclude that humans are a cancer? Yes, we are.”

If the environmental community believes its own writings, and there is no reason to doubt its beliefs, its long-term goal is to radically reduce the human population on this planet. So, the next time some ruler, be it president, minister, or chief, performs a baffling act that harms a large number of people for some inexplicable reason, ask yourself what the rulers’ real intentions are. The ruler may be stupid, evil, or power-hungry but the ruler may be following the elite’s playbook of wanting humans gone so the elite can inhabit the earth without us cancer cells threatening their reign of the planet.

 

William L. Kovacs has served as senior vice-president for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, chief counsel to a congressional committee, and a partner in law D.C. law firms, and his book Reform the Kakistocracy is the winner of the 2021 Independent Press Award for Political/Social Change. His second book, The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic is a collection of quotes from the Left on how to control society by eliminating capitalism, people, and truth.

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  • Free from EPA’s Climate Change Terror

Free from EPA’s Climate Change Terror

William L. Kovacs

July 2022

Free from EPA’s Climate Change Terror

On June 30, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ended twenty years of efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and environmental groups, (jointly “the environmental community”) to use the vague language in numerous environmental laws to regulate almost every aspect of life in the United States. Upon reading the U.S. Supreme Court’s groundbreaking opinion in West Virginia vs Environmental Protection Agency  (“West Virginia case”), I could only think of the words of Martin Luther King, “Free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last” from the environmental community’s reign of regulatory terror.

The West Virginia case involved EPA’s use of the “vague language of a long-extant, but rarely used, statute” as authority to regulate major economic and political issues without congressional authorization. Specifically, EPA was relying on section 111 of the Clean Air Act (“CAA”) to impose a cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emissions on the utility industry. The Supreme Court could have easily resolved the controversy over EPA’s “new found authority” by applying the rules of statutory construction. Such a ruling would have been very narrow. Even if the court ruled against EPA, the narrowness of the ruling would have permitted EPA to propose many more such schemes using different “new found powers.” Fortunately, however, the court recognized the issue was more than a power-hungry EPA, it was a power-hungry federal government that needed checking.

The court noted, it rejected the Biden administration’s use of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (“OSHA”) to mandate 84 million Americans either obtain a Covid-19 vaccine or submit to weekly testing. It also discussed its rejection of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s asserted authority to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium to stem the spread of Covid. Recognizing that federal agencies “were asserting highly consequential power beyond what Congress could reasonably be understood to have granted,” it took up the climate change case.

EPA’s massive regulatory scheme to regulate climate change made it easy for the court to formally announce the “Major Question Doctrine.” It held that regulatory agencies can only act on matters of economic and political significance if the agency… point[s] to “clear congressional authority.” Moreover, “Agencies have only those powers given to them by Congress, and ‘enabling legislation’ is generally not an ‘open book’ to which the agency may add pages and change the plot line.”

While the environmental community had some successes in its efforts to impose law by judicial fiat, Executive Order and by regulation, the West Virginia case put all those genies back in the proverbial bottle.

 

The Supreme Court highlights Congress consistently rejecting climate legislation

The court wrote, “Congress, however, has consistently rejected proposals to amend the Clean Air Act to create such a program [regulating climate change].” It cited the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act of 2009, the Climate Protection Act of 2011, and Save our Climate Act of 2011. The Supreme Court was kind to the environmental community. There were many more failed attempts by the environmental community to enact a comprehensive legal structure to address climate change: The Kyoto Protocol (Senate voted 95-0 against ratification), The Paris Agreement (Lacking votes, it was never submitted as a Treaty); McCain-Lieberman, Kerry-Lieberman-Graham, and others that never received a vote. Congress clearly spoke. Unfortunately, the environmental community was, and is likely, still not willing to abide by the outcome of a democratic debate.

The environmental community viewed shopping for judges the same as shopping for shoes, pick the ones you like.

As the environmental community realized Congress would not impose a massive climate change scheme on American society, it orchestrated a well-funded, highly coordinated,  nationwide litigation campaign to persuade courts to impose such a system. It filed lawsuits across the nation under any statute that might relate to climate change – Clean Air Act, (186), Endangered Species and other wildlife statutes (174), National Environmental Protection Act (322), Clean Water Act (58), miscellaneous land use statutes (168), constitutional claims under the Commerce Clause (20), First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments (41); under state laws (464), common law (29), public trust (27) and securities and financial statutes (24).

 

When legislation and lawsuits fail, it is time for the superficial power of Executive Orders

Executive Orders are nothing more than orders of the president to the executive branch of government. The reach of such orders is limited to federal operations. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Since the environmental community failed to persuade Congress and most courts of their righteousness of belief, they needed a “Hail Mary.” On Biden’s first day in office, he issued several Executive Orders to address climate change. He further directed all executive departments to place a moratorium on oil and gas leasing and fabricated a calculation of the Social Cost of Carbon to justify the high cost of climate change regulations.

A week later, Biden ordered a whole-of-government approach to address climate change. The approach resulted in agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates the stock market, proposing climate disclosure rules to force all public companies to provide detailed reporting on climate risks and emissions. On related matters, the financial regulators were pressured to deny financing to fossil fuel companies, some of our biggest corporations.

 “God’s timing is always perfect. Trust his delays” Tony Evans

In 2009 EPA was finalizing rules to implement its “Endangerment Finding,” i.e.; greenhouse gases contribute to man-made climate change that may endanger public health and welfare. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, supported by several business organizations, petitioned the agency to rescind its Endangerment Findings for a failure to disclose the data supporting the Endangerment Finding and for lacking statutory authority. It was believed EPA’s data was not peer-reviewed as required under the Information Quality Act (“IQA”) to determine its objectivity and level of its uncertainty. These were reasonable requests considering EPA was seeking to regulate the entire U.S. economy.  EPA summarily denied the petition. Those believing EPA’s data was seriously flawed and in need of cross-examination, recommended that the chamber file suit against EPA.

The environmental community attacked the chamber asserting a trial seeking access to the data was a modern-day “Scopes Monkey trial.” Concurrently, the then leader of the chamber was being pressured not to file the lawsuit. A few chamber members who benefitted from the government’s climate subsidies publicly dropped their membership to protest the mere consideration of a lawsuit. The then Administrator of EPA requested a private, confidential breakfast with the Chamber’s leader. The pressure became too great and the Chamber’s leader declined to file the lawsuit challenging EPA’s Endangerment Findings. That lawsuit was the last opportunity for the opponents of the Endangerment Findings to stop it from going final. Since the suit was not filed, EPA finalized the Endangerment Findings, thereby establishing, the findings as the scientific foundation for climate change without being subject to IQA, cross – examination or the release of all relevant and material data.

While opponents of future regulations could still make administrative law challenges to future proposed climate rules, the scientific foundation (Endangerment Findings) was deemed fact, thereby making such challenges problematic.

EPA had full roaming rights over the regulatory process between 2010 – 2016. The Supreme Court in that time period was liberal in philosophy, supported big government, and a staunchly pro-regulatory court by a 6-3 or 5-4 margin, depending on how the wind was blowing the chief’s hair that day. Had a case questioning the legality of agency regulatory overreach reached that court, it very likely would have ruled that EPA had the power to craft any regulation necessary to control climate change.

What the vanquished could not know during the many years in regulatory hell, was a fortuitous series of events would reverse their fate. A man named Trump would be sworn in as president in 2017. He would be able to appoint three new justices to the court in one term, thereby reversing the court’s judicial philosophy from liberal to conservative. The conservative court was willing to check the administrative state.

The Supreme Court imposes regulatory sanity

With the Endangerment Finding being final, Obama’s EPA finalized its cap-and-trade emissions scheme which it called the Clean Power Plan (“CPP”). EPA’s legal support rested on section 111 of the CAA and its scientific support rested in the Endangerment Findings. Litigation was initiated against the CPP and it continued throughout the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, with no resolution of the issue.

Shortly after the election of President Trump, his EPA repealed the CPP and put in its place the Affordable Clean Energy rule that limited EPA’s regulatory power to available emission reduction technologies. On Trump’s last day in office the DC Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Trump rule, however, before President Biden could reinstate a new CPP rule, the Supreme Court accepted the case for review.

What is remarkable about the West Virginia case is with all the procedural wrangling throughout three presidential administrations, the CPP never went into effect due to judicial stays and reversals. With climate change regulation causing regulatory chaos, the conservative Supreme Court realized it must address the scope of agency power to preserve the Constitution. It did so without reviewing the science of climate change as contained in the Endangerment Finding. Rather, by examining how EPA was manipulating the regulatory process to make new law without Congress, the court found a way to address the most significant issue posed by the regulatory state – agencies exercising legislative power without congressional authorization.

While the Supreme Court held that “Congress could not have intended to delegate a decision of such economic and political significance (regulation of climate change) to an agency [EPA] in so cryptic of a fashion,” its decision applies to all agencies that enact major political and economic matters without “clear congressional authority.” Clearly the court was signaling to all federal agencies, e.g.; OSHA and CDC, that they cannot regulate beyond the powers given them by Congress.

Had the environmental community been successful in expanding the authority of agencies to regulate climate change without statutory authorization, many agencies would search for and find “long-extant authorities” to further diminish the role of Congress. By affirming the role of Congress, the Supreme Court clearly reinforces the constitutional separation of powers, a structure in which Congress is the lawmaker, not agencies.

What is so mystifying about the long battle over the power of EPA to regulate climate change is the ironic ending to the struggle. In the end, EPA’s aggressive regulatory overreach resulted in limits being placed on the regulatory powers of all federal agencies.

William L. Kovacs served as senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and led the organization’s successful opposition to the environmental community’s costly climate change legislative proposals from 1998 to 2017. His book, Reform the Kakistocracy, is the winner of the 2021 Independent Press Award for Political/Social Change.

This article was initially published in the August 2022 edition of Reality News

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  • A Modest Proposal to Stop Climate Change (a satire)

A Modest Proposal to Stop Climate Change (a satire)

William L. Kovacs

July 2022

By implementing the policies of the radical environmental left, president Joe Biden will become the transformative figure he believes he is. He will be the first prophet in humankind to cause the apocalypse he predicts.  William L. Kovacs

Predictions of apocalyptic events have been made since humankind created the calendar needed for assigning the year in which the apocalypse will occur. Predictions include an antichrist, the elimination of humanity and species, the end of the world, and judgment day. All from false prophets. The prediction of a climate change apocalypse will likely occur but not from an event totally outside of human control or even high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Rather the apocalypse will be caused by the only entity on earth that can cause an apocalypse. That entity is government and Joe Biden, in biblical terms, is the vessel that will make it happen.

The climate hysterics describe a world that is full of disease, melting sea ice causing extreme worldwide flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, raging forest fires, cities with regular temperatures over 120 degrees, water so acidic as to harm marine life, and starvation over much of the world.

President Biden tells Americans in his usual “tough talk” that climate change is the “number one issue facing humanity.” That the climate crisis poses “the existential threat to human existence as we know it.” He promises “We are going to get rid of fossil fuels,” and the United States will cut its greenhouse gas emissions 50-52% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels.

Biden’s policy advisors implement his policies by shutting down oil and gas pipelines, denying investors the capital needed to produce fossil fuels, and regulating almost every manufactured product from cars to light bulbs. They also propose spending trillions more dollars on green energy in a highly inflationary economy so we can live in an environmental nirvana free of climate anxiety.

Unfortunately, to meet his policy of a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 Biden still needs to reduce emissions by 15 gigatons of CO2 equivalent. Worse, “U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rose by 6.2% last year (2021) compared with 2020.” Moreover, even with gas at $5 a gallon, consumption is close to its pre-pandemic highs.

Moreover, whatever the government mandates, the wealthy will continue to use private jets, and live in massive estates, and even estates on the beach where flooding is likely. They have all the food, water, transportation, housing, high-value goods, and servants they could ever need for many lifetimes. It is the average person that suffers from the government’s actions to address climate change. They suffer inflation, high energy prices, and a lower standard of living.

Even if Biden were the son of Obama, there is nothing reasonable he can do to tame the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. That was all attempted by the prior “god.” The radical environmental groups want Biden to take Congress behind the proverbial gym and beat the hell out of it like he promised to do to Trump. Biden likely believes he can take Congress behind the gym. After all, he shakes hands with invisible persons, believes the U.S. has the fastest growing economy in the world and has the Easter bunny rescuing him from pontificating about his delusions in public.

President Biden, your term as president is not over, however, you have very little support among ordinary people who must work every day for a living. Your best hope of being a transformative president is to do whatever the radical left believes is needed to eliminate fossil fuels. Unfortunately, the Left views your presidency as a series of half measures, perhaps only quarter measures. Scranton Joe, you can prove them wrong.

Keep up hope, a delusional mind can find reality in strange ways.

A few days ago, I found an embargoed copy of the Left’s Manifesto on Climate Change. The Left intends to give it to Kamala Harris after it forces you to resign. You have done so much for the radical Left; it is unfair to deprive you of the opportunity to fulfill their dreams. So, I am giving you this draft. Since you are very good at taking credit for the work of others, I suggest you get a pen, a lot of ink and the largest roll of two-ply toilet paper you can find. Then, start writing an Executive Order that promises to achieve all of the Left’s dreams.

Joe Biden quickly scribbles:

“I, Joe Biden, President of the U.S. do hereby order that all my cabinet Secretary Office Boys, girls, LGBTQIA+ and every person, of every gender, subject to my rule, (illegals are free of all restrictions), and especially the wealthy ones, obey the following commands:

  1. All private plane travel is hereby prohibited since rich people ravage the planet and this order is an excuse to permanently live at my beach house.
  2. All limousine travel is prohibited, except for elected Democrats at the federal, state or local level.
  3. All limousines are prohibited from carrying the Buttigieg bicycle and dropping it off a few blocks from his office so he looks like he commutes by bike. (In a bracketed note Biden writes, “Let Buttigieg walk.”)
  4. All new houses and apartments must be under 2000 square feet.
  5. All existing houses over 2000 square feet must be converted to shared living quarters with illegal immigrants having living priority over anyone, including the owner. This provision shall not apply to Democrats willing to exhibit hypocrisy in public and be criticized by conservative media. Demonstrated hypocrisy reveals leadership.
  6. All office buildings must remove elevators since walking stairs is healthy.
  7. Buildings will be warmed by body heat in the winter and cooled by paper fans in the summer for as long as there is paper.
  8. All 6000 products made from oil and gas are hereby banned. “

 Biden’s staff attaches a partial list of just 144 of the 6000 items so the public has some idea of what illegal items are made from oil or gas. Keep in mind that 42 – a gallon barrel of oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline. The rest (over half) is used to make the following unneeded products that citizens may not realize are destroying the planet:

 

Adhesives, Air mattresses, Ammonia, Antifreeze, Antihistamines, Antiseptics, Artificial limbs, Artificial turf, Asphalt, Aspirin, Awnings, Backpacks, Balloons, Ballpoint pens, Bandages, Beach umbrellas, Boats, Cameras, Candies and gum, Candles, Car battery cases, Car enamel, Cassettes, Caulking, CDs/computer disks, Cell phones, Clothes, Clothesline, Clothing, Coffee makers, Cold cream, Combs, Computer keyboards, Computer monitors, Cortisone, Crayons, Credit cards, Curtains, Dashboards, Denture adhesives, Dentures, Deodorant, Detergent, Dice, Dishwashing liquid, Dog collars, Drinking cups, Dyes, Electric blankets, Electrical tape, Enamel, Epoxy paint, Eyeglasses, Fan belts, Faucet washers, Fertilizers, Fishing boots, Fishing lures, Floor wax, Food preservatives, Footballs, Fuel tanks, Glue, Glycerin, Golf bags, Golf balls, Guitar strings, Hair coloring, Hair curlers, Hand lotion, Hearing aids, Heart valves, House paint, Hula hoops, Ice buckets, Ice chests, Ice cube trays, Ink, Insect repellent, Insecticides, Insulation, iPad/iPhone, Kayaks, Laptops, Life jackets, Light-weight aircraft, Lipstick, Loudspeakers, Lubricants, Luggage, Model cars, Mops, Motorcycle helmets, Movie film, Nail polish, Noise insulation, Nylon rope, Oil filters, Packaging, Paint brushes, Paint roller, Pajamas, Panty hose, Parachutes, Perfumes, Permanent press, Petroleum jelly, Pharmaceuticals, Pillow filling, Plastic toys, Plastics, Plywood adhesive, Propane, Purses, Putty, Refrigerants, Refrigerator linings, Roller skate wheels, Roofing, Rubber cement, Rubbing alcohol, Safety glasses, Shampoo, Shaving cream, Shoe polish, Shoes/sandals, Shower curtains, Skateboards, Skis Soap dishes, Soft contact lenses, Solar panels, Solvents, Spacesuits, Sports car bodies, Sunglasses, Surf boards, Swimming pools Synthetic rubber Telephones Tennis rackets Tents Tires Tool boxes Tool racks, Toothbrushes, Toothpaste, Transparent tape, Trash bags, Truck and automobile parts, Tubing, TV cabinets, Umbrellas, Unbreakable dishes, Upholstery, Vaporizers, Vinyl flooring, Vitamin capsules, Water pipes, Wind turbine blades, Yarn. Top of Form

Pretty much everything produced by man includes or requires petroleum products. By banning the production of oil and gas and the products made from it, the Biden administration will clearly achieve the Left’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels.

President Biden, banning all oil and gas production will make you the most Transformative President in U.S. history. You will achieve every goal of the radical Left.  With the banning of these 6000 products and items, there will be little work for the masses. This will allow you to print more and more money and distribute it quickly since you only need electrons. Please, however, use the electrons quickly since the grid is likely to go down.

The Left’s economists that preach Modern Monetary Theory will praise you on every street corner since there will no longer be television interviews due to the ban on the materials needed to produce the sets. Unfortunately, since there will be almost nothing to purchase, putting money in bank accounts will be a “futile and stupid gesture.”

After a while there will be massive food shortages and a great loss of life, that is the goal of the radical environmental movement. One of its great thinkers, Jacque Yves-Cousteau, stated – “It’s terrible to have to say this. The world population must be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn’t even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable.”

Finally, without Americans having access to industrial production, energy, and food, China will be the world superpower since it will not follow the U.S.’s lead on meeting climate goals. Ignore the grim news however, this is a fabulous opportunity for your son, Hunter. He will likely receive a very large bonus from the Chinese for giving you sound advice on transforming the U.S. By taking Hunter’s advice, Mr. President, you will be in all the history books as the most transformative ruler in the history of the world. You will exceed Nero; it took him fourteen years to collapse the Roman Empire. You will collapse the U.S. in four, a remarkable record, one worthy of a Nobel Prize.

Bye, Bye American Pie, there is nothing more to divide!

 

William L. Kovacs is the author of Reform the Kakistocracy, the winner of the 2021 Independent Press Award for Political/Social Change. He also authored The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic, a collection of apocalyptic quotes from environmentalists. Mr. Kovacs has served as senior vice-president for the US Chamber of Commerce, chief counsel to a congressional committee, and a partner in law DC law firms.

 

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  • Climate Change is About Control Stupid, Not the Environment

Climate Change is About Control Stupid, Not the Environment

William L. Kovacs

March 2022

Climate Change is About Control Stupid, Not the Environment

The apocalyptic talk about climate change is nothing more than a diversion tactic by the government, the radical Left, and its mainstream press. The many laws, trillions in federal appropriations and tax credits, and the unworkable proposals to address climate change will not slow the rise of the oceans or heal the planet. Lobbying for more climate regulation is to enhance the power of the authoritarian state, not protect the environment.

The radical Left has the world obsessing over whether we have 10, 20, or 50 years before the eve of destruction. The hysteria gives the government the excuse it needs for more controls over the energy we use, the products we purchase, the homes we live in, the food we eat, and since the pandemic when we can leave our homes. However, the data supporting the climate studies are rarely released so scientists can test the reproducibility of the studies.

Citizens of the United States already live under a legal framework that contains over 3000 separate criminal offenses in 50 titles of the U.S. Code, 23,000 pages of federal law, over 200,000 regulations, and almost daily Executive Orders that usually limit those actions deemed objectionable to the kakistocracy. Additionally, the government has in reserve 136 emergency laws allowing it to assume control over industrial production, communications and banking, and most aspects of commerce. Most of these emergency laws are effective when the president declares them effective.

“Predictions of apocalyptic events that would result in the extinction of humanity, a collapse of civilization, or the destruction of the planet have been made since at least the beginning of the Common Era.” So far, the planet still exists. George Orwell noted – “People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their wishes, and the grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.”

In the case of climate change, those who foresee the future believe that capitalism is a cancer on the earth, humans must go, truth is irrelevant. The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic captures the many statements by the Left espousing these goals. One of its leaders, Prince Phillip, calmly states, “If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.” Perhaps Covid-19 gave him his wish?

The thumbprint of the radical Left is everywhere. In one year, the Biden administration used executive power to shut down the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska, the Keystone Pipeline, and the EastMed natural gas pipeline that would supply gas to Europe. Without energy, the world crumbles, but that is a tactic the radical Left uses to achieve its agenda.

By shutting down U.S. energy supplies, Biden harms the security and economy of the U.S. The U.S. is forced to rely on terrorist states (Russia, Saudi Arabia, and now Iran and Venezuela), to produce dirty fuels so that we can chug along. Unless there is an ulterior motive, no sane world leader would ever put his nation at the mercy of terrorists.

The radical Left plays the federal regulatory system like a grandmaster pianist. With Citizen Suit provisions incorporated in all environmental laws, the Left routinely blocks industries needing federal permits.

Wielding the power of the citizen suit provisions, the radical Left uses the Clean Water Act to regulate farming and home building since water flows over the land. The Left uses the Clean Air Act to deny permits to almost any activity having air emissions, which includes manufacturing, energy production, and transportation. The National Environmental Protection Act is used to stall permits for years, sometimes decades, merely by alleging a thousand-page environmental impact statement is not sufficiently robust.

In addition to impeding economic development, the radical Left forces government to regulate almost every item in the home, including dishwashers, washing machines, showerheads, toilets, ceiling fans, light bulbs, heating and air conditioning units, stoves, ovens, refrigerators, and conventional cooking products. Seventy-four regulatory standards cover these products. Another 15,000 products, from coffee pots to ink cartridges, are regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Now the radical Left wants to ban many common foods, including sugar, chocolate, coffee, meat, palm oil, soybeans, mineral water, plastic bottles, fish, especially salmon, rice and cereal, and any fruits and vegetables that require water.

Another radical Left group identifies the top 10 foods that harm the climate: lamb, beef pork, chicken, turkey, salmon, canned tuna, cheese, eggs, and potatoes.

But for plastic packaging that preserves our food, the radical Left has 25 reasons for banning it. They also want to ban soda straws – but say nothing about billions of pounds of plastic and polysilicon solar panels embedded with toxic metals.

Now the radical Left is demanding the Federal Reserve break up banks if they make loans or investments in operations that harm the earth.

These restrictions rest on a political narrative that our way of life will result in an apocalypse. The apocalypse narrative disguises the government’s real agenda – a more authoritarian government.

It’s all about authoritarian control, stupid!

The only appropriate summation of this article is to quote David Forman, a radical Left environmental movement founder. Forman states, “Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.”

Based on the hypocritical actions of many of the Left’s leaders, like Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Lori Lightfoot, AOC, Nancy Pelosi, Stacy Abrams, and hundreds of others, it should be assumed they would be exempt from Forman’s phase-out.

William L. Kovacs has served as senior vice-president for the US Chamber of Commerce, chief counsel to a congressional committee, and a partner in law DC law firms. His book Reform the Kakistocracy is the winner of the 2021 Independent Press Award for Political/Social Change. His second book, The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic, quotes the Left on how it intends to control society by eliminating capitalism, people, and truth.

 

This article was initially published in Townhall, March 22, 2022.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • Green New Deal ideologies, fantasies and realities

Green New Deal ideologies, fantasies and realities

Paul Driessen

January 2021

Green New Deal ideologies, fantasies and realities

Your life, living standards, country, and planet will take a big hit under the Green New Deal

Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, AOC, the Democrat Party, and US environmentalists are committed to making climate change, the Green New Deal, and replacement of fossil fuels with wind, solar, battery, and biofuel power the centerpiece of their foreign and domestic policies.

They claim the transition would be easy, affordable, ecological, sustainable, and painless. That’s ideology and fantasy, not reality.

Wind and sunshine are certainly clean and renewable. Harnessing them to power America is not.

The GND would hit American families, jobs, living standards, and environmental quality hard. Western states would feel the brunt, because their fossil fuel rents, royalties, jobs and tax receipts would disappear, as drilling, fracking, and coal mining on federal lands are closed down. Their open spaces, scenic vistas, wildlife habitats and wildlife would be desecrated by wind turbines, solar panels, and transmission lines to serve distant urban voting blocs that dictate energy and land use decisions far beyond city lines.

Coal, oil, natural gas, and petroleum liquids still provide 80% of US energy. In 2018, they generated 2.7 billion megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity – which would have to be replaced under an all-encompassing Green New Deal costing tens of trillions of dollars.

Another 2.7 billion MWh worth of natural gas-powered factories, emergency power systems, and furnaces, ovens, stoves, and hot water heaters in restaurants, homes and other buildings. Cars, trucks, buses, semi-trailers, tractors and other vehicles consumed the equivalent of yet another 2 billion MWh.

Altogether, that’s 7.4 billion megawatt-hours per year that the GND would have to replace! On top of that, we’d need at least another 150 million MWh of wind and solar generating capacity to charge batteries over and over to maintain just one week of nationwide backup power, to avoid blackouts.

The more we try to do so, the more we’d have to put turbines and panels in low-quality wind and solar sites, where they’d generate electricity only 15-20% of the year, 80-85% below “nameplate capacity.”

Of course, we could replace all this fossil fuel energy with nuclear power. But radical greens inside and outside the soon-to-be Biden Administration detest and oppose nuclear as much as they do fossil fuels.

That means this transformation to an all-electric nation would require millions of onshore wind turbines, thousands of offshore turbines, billions of solar panels, millions of vehicle battery modules, billions of backup energy storage battery modules, thousands of miles of new transmission lines, millions of charging stations, tens of billions of tons of concrete, steel, copper, plastic, cobalt, rare earth elements and countless other materials – and digging up hundreds of billions of tons of overburden and ores!

If the United States and world could summon the will to mine, process and smelt enough metals and minerals – and manufacture, transport and install all those turbines, panels, batteries and transmission lines – the GND would require the greatest expansion of mining and manufacturing in human history.

But radical greens inside and outside of the Biden Administration detest and oppose US mining and manufacturing almost as much as they despise fossil fuels. That means we would have to go overseas for these essential metals and minerals – primarily to China and Russia, which have them within their boundaries or under their control in various African, Asian and Latin American nations.

They also have no reservation or hesitation about digging them up and processing them – without regard for child, slave or forced labor, workplace safety, air and water pollution, mined land reclamation or any other standards that we insist on in America. And it’s highly unlikely that Team Biden would demand that those countries implement such standards – or that it would refuse to import the metals, minerals and finished “green” technologies unless China, Russia and their foreign subsidiaries abide by our rules and regulations. The entire GND (and much more) would collapse without those unethical raw materials.

Moreover, nearly all this mining, processing and manufacturing would require gasoline, diesel, natural gas and coal in those foreign countries, because those operations cannot be conducted with wind, solar and battery power. The fossil fuel use and emissions would take place outside the United States, but would not go away. Indeed they would likely double or triple. The carbon dioxide emissions would increase global atmospheric levels and, Team Biden insists, worsen climate chaos and extreme weather.

In fact, most wind, solar and battery mining, processing and manufacturing already take place overseas, under few or nonexistent workplace safety, fair wage, child labor and environmental laws. Some 40,000 Congolese children labor alongside their parents, for a couple dollars a day, while exposed constantly to toxic, radioactive mud, dust, water and air, to meet today’s cobalt needs. Imagine the GND toll.

Replacing oil and gas for petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and plastics would require importing those feed stocks, as well – or planting millions of acres in canola, soybean and other biofuel crops. The water, fertilizer, pesticide, tractor, harvester, processing and transportation requirements would be astronomical.

All that work, and all those industrial facilities, would impact hundreds of millions of acres of scenic areas, food crop lands and wildlife habitats. Raptors, other birds, bats, and forest, grassland and desert dwellers would suffer substantial losses or be driven into extinction.

Most of those impacts would also occur in Midwestern and Western America, far from the voting centers and suspicious voting patterns that put Team Biden in office. But as they say, out of sight, out of mind – in someone else’s backyards.

The GND would also mean ripping out perfectly good natural gas appliances, replacing them with electric models, installing rapid charging systems for vehicles, and upgrading household, neighborhood and national electrical systems to handle the extra loads – costing more trillions of dollars.

Families, factories, hospitals, schools and businesses accustomed to paying 7-11¢ per kilowatt-hour for electricity would pay 14-22¢ per kWh, as they already do in “green” US states – or even the 35¢ that families now pay in Germany. Once they use more than some arbitrary “maximum baseline” amount of electricity per month, they will pay closer to 45¢ per kWh, as families already do in California.

How companies will survive, how many jobs will disappear, how many families will join the ranks of those who must choose between heating and eating – is anyone’s guess.

GND technologies are nearly 100% dependent on metals and minerals from China, Russia, Ukraine, and Chinese companies in Africa and Latin America. Emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop underscore concerns that America’s foreign, defense and domestic policies would be held hostage, while certain well-connected politicians, families and wind, solar, battery and biofuel companies get rich.

All these issues require open, robust debate – which too many schools and universities, news and social media outlets, corporate and political leaders, and Antifa thugs and arsonists continue to censor and cancel. That censorship and silencing must end before any votes or other actions are taken on any Green New Deal. Unfortunately, the opposite is happening.

Big Media and Big Tech are conspiring with Democrats, Greens and other authoritarian elements to shut down any and all discussion by anyone who does not support their agendas. Others are moving to persecute and prosecute President Trump and anyone associated with his administration and policies.

As anger and frustration build among the increasingly disenfranchised, America and the world could be heading into a frightening future indeed.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books, reports and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.

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  • The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic

The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic

William L. Kovacs

October 2020

The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic

The radical Left vigorously claims its Green New Deal and regulations to control climate change, will create a utopia with an abundance of free energy from the sun, bicycle paths for morning commutes, walking trails for contemplation, and magnificent pastures, unspoiled by pollution. A beautiful state of existence for the few selected humans occupying it?

When one, however, reads the actual words of the Left, there is a disconnect between promises and intent. The Left manipulates words such as “green” (referencing environmentalism, a positive concept to many), to cover up its “red” or socialist agenda (a negative concept to many). The manipulation of words is a proven political approach used to diminish freedom.

George Orwell noted, “Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful…and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Thus, necessity, many times, requires those seeking power over us to corrupt words so we believe something other than the advocate’s true purpose.

My new book, The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic, is a collection of quotes from the Left that advocate “capitalism must go,” “truth is not relevant,” “humans must go to save the planet,” and that without following its mandates, “the world will end in twelve years.” In the day of Covid-19, it is frightening to read the words of Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh – “If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”

Jacques Cousteau, one of the world’s most noted conservationists, using precise numbers, proposes “World population must be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.”

The reference to a “Little Red Book” alludes to Chairman Mao’s book of quotations: words proclaiming “truth” and a vision of utopia. His book educated the masses on politically correct thinking. Mao’s actions, however, were some of the most brutal in all of history.

The Left emulates Mao’s tactics. It preaches utopia and correct thinking while seeking domination. In 2020 America, The Left’s Little Red Book on Forming a New Green Republic describes how the political left uses concern for the environment (Green New Deal, climate change) to attack capitalism and scare the country into socialism.

The Left’s Little Red Book captures the complex interrelationships between the radical Left, socialism, and environmentalism in under a half-hour, easy read. These small books are called “chapbooks.” They have been around since the 16th century. Initially used as educational books, The Left’s Little Red Book, is an educational effort to expose the words of the Left so citizens can compare the actual spoken words against the promises of “utopia.”

There is no substitute for understanding the Left other than reading its actual words. General descriptions of their words would not be believable in a society that protects the rights of citizens. Reading the actual words of the Left equips one to recognize how the Left is misleading the American people with a promise of a Green New Deal and claims this is the moment “when the rise of oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal…”

The reader will quickly appreciate where the Left wants to take this country. The New Green Republic will be a perfectly designed political state with a well-functioning regulatory machine that ensures “politically correct-thought” by the “masses.”

Of the literally millions of statements by the Left on the benefits of their Green New Deal and the regulation of society to “reduce the impacts of climate change,” there is not one utterance about the rights of people in a society. Every statement by the Left “puts us in our place,” “tells us how to live,” and “what to think.” The quotes from the Left merely confirm its goal of creating a country where free people cannot live.

To quote Peter Berle, president of the National Audubon Society, 1985-1995, “We reject the idea of private property.”  Welcome to the New Green Republic

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  • A Cautionary Tale on Climate Policy

A Cautionary Tale on Climate Policy

William L. Kovacs

February 2020

A Cautionary Tale on Climate Policy

The year is 1433. The last of the ships from the seven voyages of China’s Treasure Fleet, those massive ships that displayed the might of China to all the kingdoms of the Indian Ocean, returned home to political division. The Mandarins (bureaucrats) and the eunuchs (the navy and merchant class allies) were in political battles. When the emperor who funded the great expeditions dies, his son, with the support of the Mandarins and fear of the merchant class, orders the fleet controlled by the navy, be grounded, the records destroyed and overseas trade forbidden.

Scholars posit the Mandarins burned the ships because the political elites were afraid of free trade. With the records destroyed, no one knows what happened other than China’s leaders, based on fear, made radical political decisions that thrust China into poverty for almost 600 years.

Listening to the Democrats’ debate and reading the President’s tweets, one wonders if our “leaders” are using fear to support equally, long-lasting, radical political decisions?

Harris, Sanders and Warren want to ban all oil and gas fracking. Senators Warren and Sanders want to forgive all student indebtedness when these loans constitute 45% of the financial assets held by the federal government.  All of them want to provide a lot of free things, while few realize each citizen’s share of the national debt today is $67,000 and rising quickly.

It’s not only Democrats on the edge of the abyss. President Trump imposes high tariffs on almost everything the U.S. buys from China, and China retaliates. Then he usurps Congress’ power to appropriate by transferring military funds to fulfill his campaign promise of a “wall”,  while alluding he can stop certain wars immediately by using nuclear weapons.

And if those radical proposals are not enough, Senator Sanders, proposes spending  $16.3 trillion to fight climate change by eliminating all fossil fuels by 2050.

Eighty percent of the energy used by the U.S. is fossil fuels. These fuels heat homes, power vehicles, keep factories running and lights on. Petrochemicals stripped from the petroleum are used in most manufacturing operations, including pharmaceuticals and consumer goods.

Of the available non-fossil fuel energy sources, some environmentalists don’t like nuclear for its waste; hydropower kills fish; wind takes up too much land; kills wildlife, wastes water; causes noise pollution; and solar needs too much land, and toxic materials are used in manufacturing the panels.

As a reality check, our nation is $22 trillion in debt and on our way to $29 trillion by the end of the Trump administration. Just to replace the electric grid is $5 trillion. Moreover, the oil and gas industry is over 1,500 firms on stock exchanges, and together they are at least worth a whopping $4.65 trillion. Any federal effort to regulate the fossil fuel industry out of business would be met with massive “taking claims” under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment which mandates “just compensation,” even for regulatory takings. This type of regulatory taking has already been held unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in the “Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases”. Simply, our government could owe tens of trillions of dollars in compensation for the” takings”. These costs would be in addition to Sander’s $16.3 trillion proposal.

Appropriating money to replace the fossil fuel industry is only the beginning. Securing the environmental permits for tens of thousands of replacement projects is highly unlikely without comprehensive regulatory reform. There is simply no existing legal structure that allows for removing existing energy infrastructure and constructing replacement infrastructure in the same time period. So, if a coordinated plan is not possible, the planet will be gone if the ten-year predication is correct?

The climate proposals put the future stability of the nation in question. Having the federal government demolish the nation’s energy infrastructure and rebuild it in a short period of time, is certainly a “stunning campaign promise”.  The lives of Americans are littered with high costs, half-assed, campaign promises. We haven’t been able to keep our doctor. The tax bill did not pay for itself. The wars are still continuing and soldiers still dying. The debt is growing; not being paid off in nine years as promised and on and on. Now, using fear, politicians propose to intentionally destroy a viable industry that keeps the nation working, innovating and wealthy and replace it with promises of a perfect future.

As a cautionary tale, remember 1433! If we don’t remember it, we may be handing global dominance back to China, as we descend into poverty.

This article was initially published in The Hill on September 16, 2019.

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